"A compellingly intimate DEFA woman's film from the late '70s by two creative personalities (Wolf and Kohlhaase) central to GDR cinema, SOLO SUNNY (starring Renate Krößner -- superb) is distinguished by its earnest directness, crowd-pleasing humor, and low-key realism based on scrupulous research, making for fascinating comparison with the camp decadence, sophisticated irony, and self-conscious cinephilia of Fassbinder's lavishly stylized melodramas on the other side of the wall, while opening a window onto the private yearnings of nonconformist East German youth at the time against their oppressive environs, from dreary provincial towns to Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg, with its distinctive inner courtyards (a prominent visual feature of the film) and unconventional bohemian milieu."
-- Dr. Derek Lam, Film Scholar, University of Hong Kong
Ingrid Sommer tries to launch a singing career with a stage name, Sunny, and travels around with the band Tornados to play small gigs around the province. While her headstrong way often puts her at odds with the rest of the world, and her romantic pursuits have not made things easier, she has also become more self-assertive, vigorous and alive. Based on the true story of a Crimean Tatar orphan, an outcast in the GDR, the tale of Sunny as a loner accentuates the sense of displacement of individuals in the GDR.
